Heretofore, automobile door frames and understructures therefor were assembled on the assembly line piecemeal by individually attaching to the door the understructure, the window lifting mechanism, the glass pane, and a plurality of individual window seals. Thereafter, the window regulator or crank mechanism was operatively connected to the lifting mechanism. The procedure was cumbersome and time consuming, especially the installing of the individual seals to the window frames in a piecemeal manner. Quite often gaps between the individual window seals existed which resulted in undesirable water leaks, noises, and the like. More specifically, such gaps were the result of various factors such as the inaccurate formation of the window seal channels, due to stamping or metal bending errors, etc., and prior seals generally did a poor job of covering such imperfections with the result that gaps existed causing undesirable effects such as wind noise, water leakage, etc. Such piecemeal seal construction also resulted in a door having poor aesthetics. The problem of wind noise and leakage was particularly evident, for example, near the lower front junction of the window seal, that is the mirror mount area, and also near the lower rear junction of the window, that is the lock area. Attempts have been made in the prior art to solve the above problems through advances in areas such as robotics and lasers as they relate to the finish and assembly of vehicles, but with questionable success.
The present invention is directed to an integral seal assembly which forms a weather-tight seal and also covers any stamping or metal bending errors and eliminates the problems associated therewith. The present seal assembly can be readily shaped to any desirable appearance as well as to fit various offsets, indentations, and the like, since the seal is molded as opposed to the heretofore general approach of extruding various individual seals.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,785,585 discloses an integral hardware module including window glass, window tracks and a regulator mechanism, where the module is secured inside the door below the window opening.
Similarly, U.S. Pat. No. 4,793,099 discloses a tape driven power window module for raising and lowering a vehicular window, while U.S. Pat. No. 4,110,935 suggests a take-up mechanism in a cable actuated window lifting device for automobile side windows.
Patent Schrift No. 213247 issued Jan. 25, 1961 and Belgian Patent No. 571753 issued Oct. 31, 1958, both disclose a cable actuated system for raising and lowering automobile windows.